Terror from Down Under 'Coffin Rock'

Gotta watch out for the Australians -- they like to lead you down a sunny path that quickly turns dark and foreboding. Then you turn around and find yourself alone, with no idea where you are ... and then there's a rustling sound in the bushes nearby ... and then you're cut up, bloody, and badly injured, much closer to death than you've ever been in your entire life. That was the feeling I got up from Greg McLean's Wolf Creek (before it turned silly and beyond preposterous), and that's the feeling I get from a new trailer for Coffin Rock, available to view at Twitch.

Produced by Wolf Creek's David Lightfoot and directed by first-timer Rupert Glasson, who also scripted, the film follows Rob (Robert Taylor) and Jess (Lisa Chappell), an apparently happy couple living in a small seaside town. The only blemish on their relationship is their inability to have children. One night Jess walks into a bar, sees the scruffy yet good-looking Evan (Sam Parsonson), and before you can say "Wham! Bam! Thank you ma'am!" she's pregnant. And then Evan's dark side emerges ...

I thoroughly enjoyed McLean's croc thriller Rogue, also produced by Lightfoot (in which Taylor had a small role), and Coffin Rock appears to share those films' affinity with nature, a hallmark of nearly all great Australian films. The film will have its world premiere at London's Frightfest next month.